Africa's top internet countries

Grandiose Parlor blog has a graph about Africa's Top 10 Internet Countries. Many of the top ten are countries with repressive state environments for traditional media: Morocco, Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia and Zimbabwe. Not that most of the other countries aren't without their own issues. I think it shows that even authoritarianism can't kill people's hunger for knowledge.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

User fees and health care

The IRIN news service has a good piece on the debate over user fees in African health care.

Late last year, the Liberian health ministry suspended the imposition of user fees for primary health care and set up a committee to investigate the impact of such fees on the country's extremely poor population.

The research is in part to show the level of revenue gained from fees contrasted with the extent fees keep people away from health services, one development expert in Liberia said. Many who advocate lifting fees say they do not contribute significantly to government coffers, reported IRIN.

The World Bank is working with Liberia to figure out alternative ways to fund health care. A health economist with the organization pointed out that World Bank does not support user fees, as is commonly assumed. “We’re neither for nor against user fees – what we’re for is that the poor and children have access to health care.”

A spokesman for Britain's Department for International Development said, “We think the evidence is clear that user fees are not desirable because they don't attract a lot of revenue in a typical African country, but nonetheless act as a significant disincentive for poor people to seek health care."

Some of the key problems it cited:-The problems of childbirth-The scarcity of physicians-The 'brain drain' of domestic health workers toward Europe and North America-Deadly diseases like tuberculosis, AIDS and malaria-Curing the stigma against AIDS

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Circumcision undermines anti-AIDS efforts?

As I blogged about earlier, there is some scientific evidence that male circumcision can significantly reduce the risk of contracting HIV-AIDS.

However, part of the medical community in Rwanda is concerned that the country's current circumcision campaign could actually harm anti-AIDS efforts. They fear that the campaign could lull people into believing that the procedure is tantamount to a vaccine against the disease, particularly in a country where knowledge of sexual health issues is low.

"Most of the difficulties relate to convincing men that circumcision does not exclude the use of condoms during sex," notes one general practitioner in the capital Kigali.

While circumcision may reduce the chances of the man contracting HIV by one half, a risk still remains. And obviously it does nothing for the women.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Biofuels push hurts the poor?

It estimated that Africa will see a 49 percent rise in their cereal import bill. International wheat prices have skyrocketed by 83 percent in the last year.

Poor countries will pay a record total for cereal imports, despite a fall in the total amount they will import.

The Christian Science Monitor ran a good piece exploring to what extent the skyrocketing food prices have been affected by the global push for ethanol and other biofuels.

An economist at Iowa State University estimates that one-fifth of all the acreage in the US now devoted to the crop will grow corn destined for ethanol, rather than food. Soybean prices have also been affected by this trend.

With huge amounts of crop-growing land in the US devoted instead to energy, it's no surprise that food prices are through the roof.

Friday, February 15, 2008

The new slavery

Vienna is hosting the first major international forum dedicated to the fight against human trafficking. UN officials rightly call it the hidden crime of globalisation and nothing short of modern day slavery.

It's an 'industry' with annual profits of an estimated $32 billion.

Astonishingly, one of the conference attendees called human trafficking more lucrative than the trafficking in arms.

AU selects new leaders

The new chairman of the AU Commission and effectively leader of the organization is Gabon's foreign minister Jean Ping. Ping will take over from Alpha Oumar Konaré, who headed the AU's executive branch since 2003.

About Me

The author is a freelance writer and journalist who lives in upstate New York. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Republic of Guinea (Conakry), West Africa, in the mid-90s. He is also fluent in French.
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L'auteur est un journaliste et écrivain qui habite le nord de l'Etat de New York. Il fut volontaire professeur de maths au sein du Corps de la Paix américain; il serva en République de Guinée (Conakry) en Afrique de l'Ouest dans les années 90.